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With gasoline prices rising everyone seems fearful of the consequences to American life and economy.  Yet little discussion is given to alternative engines and the changes necessary to move away from gasoline.  Though experts claim the gasoline engine is here to stay, I can’t help but to ask why?  I will give an explanation that I believe is the truth to this little predicament called gasoline addiction.  Interestingly, though the price of gas is going up, consumption is still increasing.  Which leads me to the obvious conclusion that the price hasn’t gotten high enough.  People are still buying as much as ever.  America needs the convenience of travel.  Certainly our economy and way of life depends on our ability to go wherever we want, whenever we want.  However, with all the technology on display today, our addiction to gasoline is a reflection of greed - not a lack of technological know how.

Does the U.S. government actually want us off gas?

I believe the influence of government in the area of energy has a lot to do with why the market hasn’t moved away from gasoline.  The federal tax on gasoline is 18 cents per gallon.  And local taxes average about 19 cents per gallon.  Americans consume around 400 million gallons of gasoline per day.  That’s 72 million dollars per day in federal taxes.  And 76 million in local taxes per day.  That’s a lot of money.  That’s almost 28 billion per year in federal taxes alone.  If gasoline consumption stopped, the government would have to raise or create new taxes to recoup the loss of gasoline taxes.  Have you thought about that?

Also, you have to consider the legislation passed which benefits the oil companies.  If people no longer needed gasoline, oil companies would exist only as a fraction of what they do today.  These oil barons are billionaires and they figure they own people like me.  They figure they have the right to influence legislation to benefit their pocket book.  This should be no surprise to any American, since these days everybody is trying to use legislation to rob their neighbor.

Oil companies have donated over 180 million to political candidates since 1989.  Obviously they do this to encourage legislation favoring their pocket books.  I bet the oil barons laugh about all this legislation we have in the U.S..  All these laws which won’t allow oil companies to drill for oil in our own country, are in place to satisfy someone’s sense of authority over the private property of American citizens.  This drives the prices up too.  Meanwhile the Saudi’s monarchy is filthy rich while keeping their populace in a state of ignorant dependency - which fuels Islamic fundamentalism.  I bet they’re laughing as well.  We’ve got a base in Saudi Arabia to help police “Our” oil asset meanwhile financially sponsoring the ideology of extreme Islam.

What would happen to the economies of all these countries exporting oil if the demand suddenly dropped due to new technology?  You have to consider oil is big money.  Big money is not interested in becoming little money.  Countries like India and China are buying cars faster than ever, because their economies are doing well.  This is driving the demand up.  Either we start producing more oil, or the technology will switch.  How much would you care to bet that congress will relax environmental laws and begin drilling in the U.S. rather than allow the free market to switch the technology?

Who killed the electric car?

If you haven’t seen this movie then watch the 7 minute short version I’ve posted here.  The state of California and General Motors began producing electric cars in 1996.  These cars ran on batteries, were plugged in at night, got about 100 miles on a full charge, and ran pretty much like any other car.  After a few years the program was scrapped and the cars - well they had to be returned and were destroyed.  General Motors said they couldn’t continue the program because it wasn’t profitable (Americans don’t want a car that can only go 100 miles and then has to be plugged in for hours).  GM said that the cars had to be returned because they couldn’t allow a vehicle to be on the road if they weren’t going to make and sell parts for them.

The Hydrogen car

I believe the hydrogen car will be the next big deal.  It makes the most sense to me.  I’ve posted a 1.5 minute short video where the new Honda FCX is discussed by Jeremy Clarkson.  My father said that Hydrogen is highly explosive.  So I asked him if he has ever heard of gasoline?  Imagine when gasoline powered cars first came out and people said “Are you crazy, you’re riding on a tank of explosive material!!”  Although this is true, the benefits of riding on an explosive tank greatly outweigh the liabilities of the matter.

The hydrogen car can be fueled using a Solar Powered Hydrogen Fueling Station.  They make one for your home big enough to produce a 100 miles worth of Hydrogen per day.  Fueling stations could be built across America.  Or current gasoline stations could introduce them. 

Some manufacturers in France are making a car which runs on compressed air.  There are two fiberglass tanks under the car and they are filled with compressed air.  The compressed air in turn drives the pistons up and down.  If too much pressure is on the tanks they tear (not rupture) because they are made of fiberglass.  To see a short video of these cars in action click here.

Joseph Newman runs a truck on batteries which are constantly recharged using magnet technology.  The batteries stay fully charged.  I had to look into this one.  Apparently it’s true as this website describes.  But I think this type of engine is still a long way from fruition. 

So why haven’t we already embraced these technologies?

Economics.  Car manufacturers aren’t sure which technology will end up being the leader.  And leaving the gasoline engine - who wants to make 4 different types of engines?  That’s a lot of research and development.  Plus, you have to consider that a new infrastructure (like hydrogen fuel stations) will have to be in place.  And then there’s government and big oil barons.  I don’t think either of these parties is at all interested in leaving oil.

The solution is for consumers to begin buying vehicles with these new technologies.  That is the only way to produce the desired result of market driven technological change.  The market will produce what people will buy.  No amount of lobbying can eliminate this fact.  Though I believe legislation will attempt to slow our progress towards alternative engines, I think once the ball gets rolling it won’t be stopped.

Though I am a conservative libertarian, I don’t understand the Hannity mentality regarding gasoline addiction.  Gasoline addiction is not good for our air, our lungs, our water, or our economy.  All the money spent on gasoline is money that could be going to other places in the economy.  Instead it goes to a very small percentage of people (oil industry workers).  I’d rather see that money spent evenly across the economy.  In case you haven’t calculated yet - that’s 1.4 billion dollars a day that could be going somewhere besides gasoline!

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Tags: americans, gasoline, price

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Personal Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.